How to choose the right sportsperson for your brand

A new generation of Indian Olympians are winning medals, bringing pride and delight to the public. Meanwhile, marketers sense an opportunity to tie up with them as endorsers who will bring fresh energy to their brands. Media is abuzz with stories as to which Olympian will be best suited to endorse which categories.

As marketers, we have well established paths to select Bollywood or cricket celebrities for our brands. But signing a contract with an Olympic winner brings many questions to clients, and has some grey areas. How popular is this winner in reality? With whom? What do they stand for?

And most importantly, will their fame be short lived or will it endure?

What we see as a result, is that many brands behave opportunistically, trying to gain short term awareness by leveraging the celebrities win. This is best illustrated through what happened with Manu Bhaker.

Brands need a broader macro framework to navigate the changing landscape of sports and choose the endorser with the best fit. It must go beyond a short term view on a specific athlete. Here are some views on what this framework could be

• Understand the emerging sports culture and how your brand can fit into it.

For the longest time, in India sports equaled cricket. Hence we had (and continue to have) a rich and diverse cricketing culture with its own rituals and symbols. Traditionally, we have derived our celebrities either from cricket or from Bollywood.

Today, we have begun to see the emergence of a broader ‘sports culture’ beyond cricket. From chess, to javelin, to shooting, both genders are choosing alternative sports to shine in.

The emerging sports culture is a rich and varied collage representing the diversity of our country and its youthful population, as well as genuine local interest and inclination towards particular sports.

I believe that brands should understand the sports culture and its impact on the daily lives of their target audience. Will we see schools introducing new sports, and kids taking them up? Will we see older people (for example, 40-plus) taking up some sport as well? Will we evolve beyond walking and going to the gym in our pursuit of fitness?

Is the idea of competitiveness changing amongst consumers?

When brands understand how their consumer is interacting, or will interact with the sports culture, it will give them ideas to integrate this behaviour into their consumer insights, brand idea or even brand purpose. For example a detergent brand can pick up if new types of clothing are entering the repertoire. A food brand can look at the right foods and supplements that fuel nutrition at a specific lifestage.

It can even give ideas for new products or ranges that don’t exist today. For example, a fashion brand could look at an athleisure range for older people.

By understanding the emerging sports culture, a brand can find its place in it and start to draw energy from it. Equally importantly, it can decide that it may not fit into it for now, and focus resources elsewhere.

• Using the Archetype model to map brand persona to sports and sportspeople

Too often, celebrity endorser choice is driven on just two dimensions

• Budget as a limitation
• sheer popularity/strength of following

Basically the choice boils down to this – who is the most popular celebrity whom I can afford in my budget?

When we look at Olympic winners, marketers struggle to map them on these dimensions. This winner has just recently hiked their rates, how do I know they are worth it to me?

These two factors don’t cease to be important but an important additional dimension is the fit of the celebrities persona, with that of your brand.

In Greek, the word archetype means 'original pattern’.

Archetypes represent universal patterns of behaviour based on 4 core underlying needs or motivations.

They are timeless and culture agnostic.

As a brand strategist, I find the archetype model to be a fantastic framework to discuss with my clients how to position brands – and find the best celebrity fit with my brand. It’s universally easy to relate to, brings agency and client quickly onto the same page. I see clients are immediately intrigued by the thought of where their brand could fit.

The first task for a client, is to identify which archetype best represents their brand. This has to be an evidence based exercise – it can involve either internal soul-searching for the essence of one’s brand, or using an established research framework. Ideally, the exercise should encompass both.

Once a client has identified an archetype, we have a very simple lens to evaluate any celebrity we want to onboard for endorsement – to see in what ways the persona matches that of the brand.

It is tempting for us to think that all athletes are heroes because they compete and win.

But what about the sportpeople who win chess matches? They might stand for the understanding of the sage. What about those who overcame great adversity and struggle to reach where they did? They might represent the power of the magician to turn obstacles into opportunities.

And what about the sport itself? Individual sports could be a better fit with certain archetypes, than others.

Using archetype-based thinking can give a fresh lens to look at Olympic athletes. It can also help brands to tap more effectively into sports culture by choosing arenas which align to their own values, thus finding their fit. They can then build partnerships and alliances with these sports, helping them to spot the next generation of stars sooner.

And above all, it can lead to long term mutually beneficial partnerships with certain categories of sports, or certain athletes. Brands can partner with athletes to tell stories that showcase the athlete’s journey before and after they achieved success. They can associate their own beliefs and values with these stories if there is a brand-athlete fit. They can build stories around aspects other than victory. Victory is short lived and fickle. Values persist.

It is this type of thinking that will build brands over time. And in a country which is just starting to look beyond the confines of cricket, the brands will also have a chance to help build the newer horizons of sports.